Everything had to start somewhere and this grocery chain started here. I've been to the first Walmart (Rogers Arkansas), the first JC Penney (Kemmerer Wyoming), the first Dunkin (Quincy Massachusetts) and the first Starbucks (Seattle Washington). So it was interesting to see the location of the first of this humorously named supermarket.
On the front, he marker reads, "With a brass band, a beauty contest, flowers for the ladies, and balloons for the children Clarence Saunders of Memphis opened the first Piggly Wiggly, America's first completely self-service grocery store, at 79 Jefferson Avenue ( 1/2 block west of here) on Sept. 6 1916. In conventional stores of that time, shoppers presented their orders to clerks who fetched goods, ground coffee beans, measured flour, and sugar, and then added the bills in pencil on the back of sacks."
And then the reverse, "At Piggly Wiggly, customers entered through a turnstile, filled their own baskets as they walked through a maze of shelves containing hundreds of products, and had their bills figured by clerks with adding machines. Saunders received patents for many of his innovative designs. By 1921, his company, Piggly Wiggly Corporation, had franchised stores in 200 cities in 40 states, with combined annual sales of $60 million. In only five years, Saunders had revolutionized the U.S. grocery industry."
This is marker number 4E-110 and was erected by the Tennessee Historical Commission. There is street parking nearby and the trolley line is adjacent.
[Review 19846 overall - 398 in Tennessee - 819 of 2023.] read more